Saturday, August 7, 2010

Fedora-56

Writing or avoiding writing something on Redhat or Fedora was not my intention.

I waited till I have scored, half a century (in short reviews) to write about Fedora.
It is a long story but I cut it short lest you get bored.

My entry into Linux started with Redhat 8.

Then I graduated to Redhat 9.
What was good about Redhat was it's book base.

Every time a new edition came, there was a plethora (pathological term for excessive congestion of blood) of books from little to big.
All those books were the only resources, I had and I never had a proper Linux Guru.
The plethora was a blessing in disguise to me.
Evey time I had a problem I could sort it out by reading a Redhat book.

Then they, the Redhat left me high and dry with the entry of Fedora.

I went up to Fedora 3 and I already had Mandrake installed in parallel with Redhat and decided to give a boot to Redhat and Fedora.

By then I have mastered Debian too (it took almost 6 months for me to come to term with it but it was worth the trouble) and booting Fedora and Redhat out was almost reflex action and automatic, with no regrets.
All the books were thrown to the attic.

Mandrake and Debian are well known for not having books written on them.
Debian, of course, because of its slow release cycles (of change) and the extensive online documentation (only a few access them for information) did not have to bother about the market forces but went on churning out (now over 42 CDs) package after package to boost the online community.

So I followed their progress to Lenny and when
Mandrake became Mandriva I was fed up again.

I was left high and dry again.
I knew there were many equally frustrated like me out there.

I only knew that people who go with the market forces will fall with the market forces and I looked for new avenues.

I found an ally, that was PCLinux-2007
(of course Knoppix and Puppy Linux were there for my comfort).
I knew and believed that the next innovation has come to town (also the Flash Drive boot Pendrive Linux).
What happened with Redhat and Mandrake is now the dead past.

I thank them both for their diversion from the original philosophy.
They have given me the freedom of choice, lest I get hooked to any one of them for life.

This time not by market forces but my own choice.

Recent stock market crisis brought on by the greed is a reminder that profit making is not the only goal in life.

The sustainability in the minds of the users, here, there and all over that matters is the golden rule.
Few rich people or a few powerful politicians do not make this world better or make it go forward.

The rich philosophy of course will take us there.

I have already downloaded over 200 Live Distributions.
Picking the fifty (50) or hundred
(100) is no mean task.
I have already 53 in the fold and
Fedora 13-54 (CD) is also among them.
I suppose that I have made amends with Fedora, the CD I downloaded few days ago is good for any occasion.

Mind you I download every possible Debian both live and install (12 out of the 40 odd series is with me).
Why I do not write anything on Debian is, it is the God Father of Linux, anybody who wants to master should try Debian.

Live Debian is one among many and writing only about Live CD does not do justice to Debian Community!

CalculateLinux-55

Calculate Linux that comes from Russia has several versions.

Xfce distribution is cool, sleek and beautiful.

Like Epidermic it has included all that is necessary for an ordinary installation.
Its heavier version has more utilities but I like the Xfce.

It is Genitoo based and has KDE as X-windows.

Unlike ALT Linux it has better English language support.

Epidemic-54

Epidemic is a Debian based distribution with KDE.
It is a Brazilian based distribution with support for English.
In its (heavy category) 1.7 GB it has incorporated lot of games, scientific and specially DVD editing and presentation packages.
Everything one needs in an installation is there.
It
something that you would like to have if you are not interested in adding utilities from the internet after installing.
Its installer is graphic intensive (easy for a newbie).

LinuxConsole-53

LinuxConsole that comes from France is one of the best Linux distribution for Multimedia.
It has several live CDS.
One for old computers with low memory with only 157 MiB.
One for Multimedia with 218 MiB which boots up fast and detects hardware and partitions well.
One Live Cd (2009).

Only difficulty I had was with downloading (it is fast).

The server abruptly terminates the downloading when the single is weak.

QIMO-2-52

QIMO is one that stands out when Linux distribution dedicated for education is brought up for discussion.
It is attractive and kids love it.

ADIOS-6.2-51

ADIOS Linux is a Fedora based Linux distribution slanted for education purposes.
It boots up and connects to internet fast.
However it is not possible to pack enough educational utilities in 700 MiB.
As a distribution it is stable coming from Redhat lineage.
But compared to Qimo Fedora has not produced enough educational utilities.